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N0KFQ > TODAY 20.02.17 15:16l 110 Lines 5549 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 23747_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Feb 20
Path: IW8PGT<IV3ONZ<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<KQ0I<KF5JRV<N0KFQ
Sent: 170220/1310Z 23747@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
1962
An American orbits earth
From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. is
successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7
spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut.
Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among
the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America's first
astronauts. A decorated pilot, he flew nearly 150 combat missions
during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he made the
first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying
from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes.
Glenn was preceded in space by two Americans, Alan B. Shepard Jr.
and Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and two Soviets, Yuri A. Gagarin and
Gherman S. Titov. In April 1961, Gagarin was the first man in
space, and his spacecraft Vostok 1 made a full orbit before
returning to Earth. Less than one month later, Shepard was
launched into space aboard Freedom 7 on a suborbital flight. In
July, Grissom made another brief suborbital flight aboard Liberty
Bell 7. In August, with the Americans still having failed to make
an orbital flight, the Russians sprinted further ahead in the
space race when Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard
Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United
States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold
War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion,
they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space
advance arrived.
It was with this responsibility in mind that John Glenn lifted
off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 9:47 a.m. on
February 20, 1962. Some 100,000 spectators watched on the ground
nearby and millions more saw it on television. After separating
from its launching rocket, the bell-shaped Friendship 7 capsule
entered into an orbit around Earth at a speed of about 17,500
miles per hour. Smoothing into orbit, Glenn radioed back,
"Capsule is turning around. Oh, that view is tremendous."
During Friendship 7`s first orbit, Glenn noticed what he
described as small, glowing fireflies drifting by the capsule's
tiny window. It was some time later that NASA mission control
determined that the sparks were crystallized water vapor released
by the capsule's air-conditioning system. Before the end of the
first orbit, a more serious problem occurred when Friendship 7`s
automatic control system began to malfunction, sending the
capsule into erratic movements. At the end of the orbit, Glenn
switched to manual control and regained command of the craft.
Toward the end of Glenn's third and last orbit, mission control
received a mechanical signal from the spacecraft indicating that
the heat shield on the base of the capsule was possibly loose.
Traveling at its immense speed, the capsule would be incinerated
if the shield failed to absorb and dissipate the extremely high
reentry temperatures. It was decided that the craft's
retrorockets, usually jettisoned before reentry, would be left on
in order to better secure the heat shield. Less than a minute
later, Friendship 7 slammed into Earth's atmosphere.
During Glenn's fiery descent back to Earth, the straps holding
the retrorockets gave way and flapped violently by his window as
a shroud of ions caused by excessive friction enveloped the
spacecraft, causing Glenn to lose radio contact with mission
control. As mission control anxiously waited for the resumption
of radio transmissions that would indicate Glenn's survival, he
watched flaming chunks of retrorocket fly by his window. After
four minutes of radio silence, Glenn's voice crackled through
loudspeakers at mission control, and Friendship 7 splashed down
safely in the Atlantic Ocean. He was picked up by the USS
destroyer Noa, and his first words upon stepping out of the
capsule and onto the deck of the Noa were, "It was hot in there."
He had spent nearly five hours in space.
Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President
John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral. He later addressed
Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular
as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the "Clean Marine" in the
years after his historic flight. Frustrated with this
uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and
in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home
state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however,
he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear
in a fall. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola
executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic
nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later, he defeated
Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win
reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the
Democratic nomination for president.
In early 1998, NASA announced it had approved Glenn to serve as a
payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery. On October 29,
1998, nearly four decades after his famous orbital flight, the
77-year-old Glenn became the oldest human ever to travel in
space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA
study on health problems associated with aging. In 1999, he
retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in
office, a record for the state of Ohio.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
Winlink: n0kfq@winlink.org
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